POLYVAGAL THEORY:
Tracking the Vagus Nerve
Polyvagal Jedi Training
Building awareness of our physiological state is the key to resilience. Polyvagal Theory gives us agency to live in the physiological states most advantageous to our circumstances. When we practice deliberate state shifting we are training to become Jedi.
This practice accesses optimal nervous system performance resulting in the conscious blending of activation (sympathetic) with social engagement (ventral vagal). Polyvagal Theory founder, Dr. Stephen Porges, calls this expression of healthy aggression, “play”. Jedi call it the light side of the force. (Drummers, I am telling you - this is our jam!)
Experienced Jedi can also blend a controlled shutdown response (dorsal vagal) with social engagement (ventral vagal) to find deeply introspective states of creativity, curiosity, and connection. The pivotal element for Jedi is to remain grounded in ventral vagal engagement.
But training to access our threat responses without remaining grounded in social engagement is where Darth Vader turned to the dark side. He empowered himself with the endless internal struggle of sympathetic activation or dorsal vagal shutdown volatility. Living our lives in constant degrees of activation or shut down threat responses, given time, slowly and perniciously contaminates our bodies, minds, and relationships.
A dark-side-bias stress response inclines the user toward a state of threat, slanting one’s perception of our environment and relationships as dangerous and malicious. Continuously activating threat responses exhausts our metabolic resources and creates a dependence, sometimes an addiction, to the energy of stress hormones, leading us away from human connection, health, and intention - toward the dark side.
Don’t let Darth Vader in your Dorsal Vagal. Be a Polyvagal Jedi. May the force be with you.
Neuroception
Dr. Stephen Porges authored his first book on Polyvagal Theory in 2011 and it continues to revolutionize our understanding of how our bodies respond to stress. Our vagus nerve performs reflex recognitions of safety, danger, or life threat four times per second. This is called Nueroception.
This threat reflex is capable of unconsciously hijacking both our physiological and cognitive states. Bringing awareness to our physical cues of neuroception is vital for optimal performance and wellbeing. Polyvagal Theory has translated the language of our nervous system and continues to grow as it informs the work of many interdisciplinary leaders in psychology, therapy, yoga, athletics, and now, artistic performance.
The Vagus Nerve
The Vagus Nerve mediates our body as the key player managing heartbeat, respiration, digestion, immunity, body temperature, and stress responses. It even holds influence over our perception and memory. Polyvagal Theory has uncovered the dynamic functions of the vagus nerve, coordinating the systems of our body like a vehicle’s timing belt.
Whether we experience evasive speed, shut down, road rage, idling, or repair the vagus nerve delivers us into these divergent physiological states according to our neuroception. For thousands of years, this nerve has been a neural watchtower of protection, a servant of cognitive directives, and a barometer of atunement with our bodily organ status.
Polyvagal Theory lives to prove that strong bi-directional communication between the brain and the vagus nerve is pivotal to all aspects of our lives.
The Polyvagal Ladder
We have all heard of the fight-or-flight stress response. It is only one position on the Polyvagal ladder. The ladder illustrates our emotional regulation spectrum with dramatic implications depicting how the Vagus Nerve governs our responses to social engagement and threat.
Movement up and down the ladder represent changes in our physiological rhythms and sensations: ventral vagal social engagement, sympathetic activated stress response, and dorsal vagal shutdown, the darkest of our emotional states.
Being aware of the cues of neuroception allows us to locate the ladder position of our physiological state. We can then execute Polyvagal neural exercises to move toward optimal regulated states which benefit both our performance and our health. Like an emotional GPS, we can see where we are and get directions to where and who we want to be.